CHAPTER 1: Living With Ghosts

Edward Radcliffe of James City County talks about his grandfather who earned a Civil War Medal of Honor and was just identified in an unmarked grave at Yorktown Naval Weapons Station.

Edward Radcliffe of James City County talks about his grandfather who earned a Civil War Medal of Honor and was just identified in an unmarked grave at Yorktown Naval Weapons Station. (Heather S. Hughes, Daily Press)

STEPHANIE HEINATZDaily Press

When the War of the Rebellion entered its fourth year in the early winter of 1864, Edward Ratcliff was laboring in the fields of a several-hundred-acre plantation in James City County.

For all his 28 years, Edward had been a slave on that farm. The landowner was his master, the slave quarters the only home he had ever known.

Beyond the farm in one direction was Jamestown Island, site of the English settlement established in 1607 on the banks of the James River. After more than 250 years, it remained a testament to the birth of this country.

In another direction was Yorktown. Nearly a century before, American troops defeated the British there, ending the Revolutionary War and bringing freedom to the new country. As Edward worked his plow that cold January day, Yorktown was once again at the crossroads.

In 1862, federal troops - fighting to preserve the union - had ripped the town from the hands of the Confederates.

Word of the victory spread rapidly.

Slaves from across the region bravely left their homes, flocking to Union army camps. They traded their life of bondage for the unknowns of life as a refugee. They looked to the military for food, work and protection.

Edward looked for freedom.

He'd heard that the Union army was enlisting black men. No more would he be thought of as a piece of property. No more would he only dream of one day having his own life.

He would make his own life. He would fight for his own freedom. Edward set down his plow and walked away.

By Jan. 28, 1864, Edward was no longer a slave. He was a private in the Army of the United States.

FAMILY HISTORY

Edward Radcliffe - as the family name is now spelled - has heard this story about his grandfather many times, but he can't say whether all the details are true. The story has been passed down orally for almost 100 years.

As time has gone by, though, Radcliffe has thought often of the man he was named for.

Radcliffe, 84, regrets having visited Edward's final resting spot only once, when he was a young child.

When Edward died in 1915, he was buried in a modest cemetery - the Cheesecake Cemetery, it was called, from a mispronunciation of the Indian name for the area. Locals referred to the area as "the reservation" because the people who lived there were, for the most part, either American Indians or freed slaves.

Three years after Edward died, in 1918, the cemetery and much of the land around it was deeded over to the federal government, which established the military base now known as Yorktown Naval Weapons Station.

Behind the gates of the secretive, high-security base - it's one of the places where the Navy stores missiles and torpedoes - the cemetery and Edward's grave all but ceased to exist. The cemetery was off-limits to the public, closed to the family. It fell into disrepair: Wooden grave markers disintegrated, the walls of the neighboring church crumbled.

And even though Radcliffe worked at the base for more than 30 years - his daily commute took him within three or four miles of his grandfather's grave - security restrictions kept him from the part of the base where the cemetery is.

"I wanted to go," he said. "I should have."

Radcliffe - now four years older than Edward Ratcliff was when he died - yearns to learn more about his ancestor.

"I know what he looked like," Radcliffe said.

He recalls a picture hanging on the living room wall in his mother's house in the 1940s. He remembers looking at it when he left for France during World War II.

It was framed. Slightly faded.

The man wore a military uniform. The Union army's uniform.

"He was real tall. Real straight."

The pose was formal.

The old soldier "must have been looking his best."

Based on the black-and-white shading of the picture, Radcliffe imagined that he and his grandfather shared the same soft caramel complexion.

Edward was a kind man, his mother would say. He was a good man. A brave and honorable man. And she loved him very much.

She loved what he represented, and she admired him for the obstacles that he'd overcome in life.

He was born a slave, but as a soldier - during one of the battles that helped open the door to the Confederate capital in Richmond - he became one of only 16 black men in the Civil War to earn a Medal of Honor.

After the war, while the South attempted to come to grips with its defeat, Edward returned to the Peninsula and settled his growing family in York County, where they at last lived free.

THE EULA W. RADCLIFFE MEMORIAL HIGHWAY

In York and James City counties today, the Radcliffe name is well respected and widely known.

In addition to his 30-plus years at the weapons station, Edward Radcliffe has been involved in the Boy Scouts for nearly 50 years.

The road outside his house, Route 60, is named for his wife, Eula Radcliffe. Before her death in 1999, "Mama Eula" Radcliffe was a community activist and avid volunteer. She encouraged neighbors in their Grove community, a predominantly black district, to vote. Local politicians begged for her help on campaigns. And for more than 50 years, she labored to turn young men into honorable Boy Scouts.

In 2000, the Virginia General Assembly designated the entire length of Route 60 in James City and York counties the "Eula W. Radcliffe Memorial Highway."

So it didn't take long this past spring for word to get back to Radcliffe that someone had been making inquiries about his grandfather.

He didn't know yet what it meant, but a friend told him that "a gentleman had gotten in touch with him. They'd found an Edward Ratcliff buried in Cheesecake. They were looking for relatives."